A couple of months ago, when I was young and full of hope, I mentioned that I was going to try to write a little something here every day. Yesterday, I did not, because I used most of my energy decorating for my daughter’s family birthday party. I really felt bad about myself for not writing. Not because it’s writing – but because it is a thing I fizzled out on.
I fizzle out on a lot of things, but it turns out that today – after blowing up a scadzillion balloons – all my “hot air” has not all been relegated to party festivities. So even though I didn’t write yesterday, here is today’s post.
I am very good at two endeavors: Starting things and losing interest in things. Now you’d think a substantial bit of time would have to be passed between those two, but not for me. I can lose interest almost instantly. Not people, mind you. People I love for life. But just about everything else? MEH.
I won’t half-ass the starting of things, of course. I go in whole hog, as we say here in the South. For example, when I took up yoga, I swore I would make it a consistent practice. Two weeks later, I subluxed a hip trying to do a downward dog and had to quit. And I can’t really blame the injury, I was already getting bored.
I have done this with crafts, business ideas, dieting, religion. Unrealistically saying to The Thing, “you better fix my whole damn life.” And out of ignorance or denial – I’m not sure which – I will low-key believe that ridiculous shit.
The problem is that I come at The Thing with both barrels blazing, shooting until I’m out of ammo, click click click that trigger anyway, until I collapse on the floor and tell myself, you can’t even shoot right. Lather, rinse, repeat with every hobby, jobby, or political lobby, until it holds absolutely no interest to me.
The Thing will be the antidote to life. The Thing is going to be so fulfilling, I will forget that I’m neurotic and flaky and stand triumphant for once on the monument to my completed task! The Thing is going to save/help/make me worth the air I breathe.
Holy shit. I am expecting The Thing to dole out my worthiness. That’s too big a job for yoga. That’s too big a job for me. It’s too big a job for anyone but God.
Perhaps, for example, The Thing is not writing; it’s the joy and pain expressed in the writing. It’s the purging, sharing, heartache and laughter.
The Kingdom of God lives within us. We cannot find it anywhere else. We cannot summon it. We cannot find it IN anything else. It can’t be imported, exported, structured, organized, or unfulfilled. It exists in energy so divine; the glorified hustle has to take a seat.
Perhaps “going inward” is the only consistent practice we require to find The Thing. And if the venue of my spirit is good enough to house God, I guess it’s good enough for me…wild and unfocused as it may be!
If you’d never even seen a Bible, where would you find evidence of God?
It isn’t heresy to wonder, friends. He put the wonder there, in our spirits.
Think on it a second. If you’d never been “formally” introduced to the concept of God, would you believe in a higher power?
While we were busy paving paradise and putting up a parking lot, we decided Eden was all that great and that we could do better.
I see God as the vastness of the ocean, not fully understandable to us, but too full of life and wonder to be random occurrence.
But he is also made obvious by the minutia.
Tiny, insignificant plankton feed the krill, which in turn feed the whales. Imagine explaining to our ancestors that the largest animal on Earth subsists on the smallest!
And here’s the hook – phytoplankton exist because they turn sunshine into energy. Sunshine. In the great trickle-up of nature, we are made of sunshine, too. Not just anxiety, and angst, and sciatica pain.
If you had never read the words of a tome highlighted in red, would you walk through a forest and find evidence of his majesty? Knowing every bit of flora and fauna was making breathable air to sustain us all? I know we have been apt to describe the Spirit of God as “wind,” but what of his breath?
In a brick-and-mortar church, I learned that God made the earth, and it was good. It’s right there in the Bible.
In 9th grade biology, I learned that photosynthesis is the process of plants turn light energy into breathable oxygen. And that’s also good.
But both of those things, while true, can be dry as kindling or old bones, if Spirit is taken for granted. If the wind doesn’t reach us.
Do we know God beyond book-learning?
Because that’s where the synthesis in us takes place. As in every seed, we carry a holy blueprint. As in the lungs of the trees, we are continually provided refreshment and life. The sometimes slow, indivisible forces sustaining us are forever turning us from sunshine to being. And it is in the trusting of this that we are able to grow.
I pray you find God outside of the Bible today. I hope you smell a flower, hug a tree, or swim in the incredible proof of God that we call “water.” I hope a switch clicks in the recesses of your soul, and you realize the same care taken to create the world, went into making you.
God is real. He is majestic in the minutia of even this shit show, lending us his light to make our energy sustainable. His breath our existence. Our existence his breath.
It has easily been the longest summer in my entire life. Punctuated by triggers and glimmers and rolling thunder, it rains almost every afternoon. The day will be sunshiny (albeit, hot!) and from a great distance, you will hear the thunder.
At first, you wonder if the noise was a motorcycle or a garbage truck in the neighborhood over. But if you listen closely, there is the thunder cadence – a low vibration awakened, that you feel in your chest before your ears can confirm its source. And then the building growl roiling over the clouds: Yep, that’s thunder. Again. Here we go.
Nobody wants thunder at the beach. Thunder is a rude affront to the vacationers. It means get out of the pool, pack up your sand buckets. Might as well eat lunch out; the beach requires flexibility. But everyone has the same idea, so every restaurant is crowded and has an annoying wait. The kids are whiny, there’s sand in unmentionable places, you just want your ass in a beach chair, your kids in the pool and out of your hair, and BY DAMN you’re going to enjoy this experience in spite of the thunder and rain. All of this started with a little thunder.
When I received the diagnosis of Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia on June 13, when the summer was still fat with promise and completely benign. A lot of people freshly diagnosed with cancer describe the new diagnosis as a kind of hurried chaos. “For a while, it was a blur,” is a common sentiment.
But for me, it has not been a blur. It has been a sloth racing a snail and losing. It has been much pacing through my house, wandering aimlessly. It has been too much time on my hands, angry outbursts, crying seshes, and doomscrolling. I am wishing time away, and then chastising myself for wishing time away.
Because I could have 20 years with this cancer, although that’s the exception. I could also have five. Talking openly about the possibilities is therapeutic for me but makes everyone else uncomfortable. I’m not trying to make anyone else uncomfortable, but I’m trying to accept that we all have an expiration date, and if nothing else gets me first, this cancer will. That’s not fatalistic. That’s realistic. Cancer is not the only chronic health issue I deal with, but it’s a doozy.
Nobody wants thunder at the beach. But every day it comes – the realization- a rude affront to all the plans I’ve made for my life. The doctor’s visits mean crowded rooms where people wait, annoyed. I really just want my ass in a beach chair. Summertime means a season of heat and rain, that’s just the nature of the season.
And it occurs to me today that its exactly what depression feels like. I’ll be swimming with my floaties on under clear skies, when I will feel the rumble in my chest. At first, its mostly vibration, but by the time it’s all said and done, there are torrential tears and terrifying cracks of doom. They show up every day, like clockwork, suffocating me with humidity, impossible to ignore.
So, I write. And that helps. I talk to people I love and to the GTOAT (Greatest Therapist of All Time,) and that helps too. I listen to music loud enough to drown out the claps of thunder, and throw paint on a canvas, or fitfully meditate. The practice doesn’t have to be perfect. It just has to be practiced. But Jesus help me.
Please help me with the episodic depression that pops my floaties and sucks me under as soon as I hear thunder. Expect it to visit at least once a day. I can hide like a frightened animal in a storm or do a little rain dance; that’s entirely up to me – triggers, glimmers, and rolling thunder – all. Help me to accept that it’s just the nature of the season, and to keep my joy, all while realizing yep, that’s thunderagain.Here we go…
In the interest of transparency, today sucks a little. I share when I have good days and get gussied up – admittedly those are fewer and further apart. And I share when I’m struggling because I don’t want to pretend I have my shit together for social media. That benefits no one. I don’t. And I won’t. Life is messy (and also great and awful, in turn. So who can give up yet?) But today the fatigue is crushing me, literally feels like a smothering blanket I can’t get out from under. And my pain level is crazytown. People get tired of hearing about my pain, I’m certain. But I’m tired of feeling it. So I spent some time meditating. And some time worshipping. And crying. And that’s the truth. That’s me, pulling myself up by my bootstraps. Leukemia sucks. Ehlers Danlos sucks. I’m tired of physical weakness making me feel less strong as a whole person. It’s just a hell of a day.
Thor’s Helmet in Canis Major. This image captures NGC 2359, a nebula shaped like Thor’s helmet in the constellation Canis Major (the Greater Dog.) Behold the absolute majesty of such creation!
By: JANA GREENE
I have always loved space. I think maybe I was born the year of the moon landing, that event which eclipsed my birth but began my own personal Age of Aquarius. I am also from Houston, where NASA was cause celebre – a field trip destination when I was a child, a portal to the great unknown.
I am 55 now, much more jaded about the conditions here on this planet, and a little obsessed with the beauty of the unknown. And now BEHOLD! The James Webb Telescope is capturing all of the glory I felt was surely “out there.” It’s like a great confirmation that our every day is not just every day in the vast universe. And that is super comforting to me.
Because here we mostly just see what’s here now, and experienceable through a finite number of human senses. It’s easy to forget we are divine beings living in a mousetrap of sorts.
Our daily lives are driving to work and driving past long, rectangular shopping strip malls, each less remarkable than the last. We shop in grocery stores that shelve our sustenance; items stocked neatly in a row, affordable by only some of us, while others go hungry. Traffic lights telling us when we can move, stop signs telling us when to stop. Hospitals housing our infirm, and despondent. Skyscrapers places to while away the time in order to make this thing we have made our god called “money.”
We worship vacations, because they set us free from the mundane for a fleeting time. We marvel at theme parks, because they make us feel like we aren’t ants marching on a big, blue marble. They are fantasy, and we have made fantasy the be-all end-all, another god altogether – who will whisk us away from working, and strip-mall shopping, and boredom.
The two places that seem most like home to me are space and ocean. Something about the mystery of the unexplored, the hope of otherness. Two of my hyper fixations that shape my daydreams and my dream life. Every new image from the telescope making me swoon.
Can you imagine I mean seriously; can you imagine? The colors, thick with stars, speckled with other worlds. Worlds where maybe gravity isn’t such a drag, sucking us to the good Earth. It makes me starry-eyed, morphing me into a child again, who wishes to soar through the cosmos and escape this realm. Escape all of the violence that exists here, and the poverty that breaks my heart, and the man-made monuments we make to celebrate ourselves.
I’d like to astronaut myself right out of this earth suit of mine, with of its maladies and humanity, and soar through endlessness.
But Houston, we have a problem. My feet won’t seem to leave this plain. They are heavy with purpose here, even as my mind likes to travel “out there.” Out there where my mind will quiet, maybe. Out there where God himself decides the order, which celestial bodies to spin where, what galaxies should resemble earthly things. I think some majesty of the universe is that we recognize some of it in ourselves.
A compulsory Google search will show us the Helix Nebula, which appears like a giant eye in outer space. It is often referred to as “The Eye of God.” The “Butterfly Nebula,” captured in 2009 by the Hubble Telescope. The “Horsehead Nebula,” looking for all the world like the profile of a steed. The list is endless.
The ancient stargazers knew that the Universe ties itself to us, even without modern telecopy. It reflects our world so that we know we are a part of it.
Carl Sagan has famously said: “The cosmos is within us. We are made of star stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself.” A way for the Universe to know itself.
We are literally made of stardust – from the elements God used to create everything. Our good earth in its natural, perfect state. And the great mystery of miracles we call the “sky.” There is so much more glory.
Look up from your day job. Look up from your pain. See that there is so much more! And I will try to keep looking up, too. To quote Carl Sagan again, “Some part of our being knows this (space) is where we came from. We long to return. And we can, because the cosmos is also within us.”
Star stuff, mind you. Made for bigger things, better things. Don’t give up hope that God can fix this world through us, through a much bigger reality. I will hold that hope too, as I obsess over the Great Beyond that we call “outer space.” And be reminded we – all of us, and the whole Universe too – are connected.
Today it’s raining like God has something fierce, like God has something to get off his chest. A bone to pick with humanity. Not a sprinkle but a torrential downpour, and like everything else right now, it comes hard and heavy.
I don’t know about you, but I’m getting tired of “hard and heavy.” As I sit sipping coffee on the front porch of a little log cabin, I consider society and watching its apparent downfall. And I let my mind play pretend for a bit. I am a pioneer woman, hearty and fulfilled with the simplest of pleasures.
Never mind that there were no Airbnb’s on the “Oregon Trail,” (Blue Ridge highway?) only thoughts of sustenance and probable dysentery. Never mind that I would be long dead if that were the case, because childbirth proved nearly fatal for me bringing my two biological children into the world. I come from weak, generic- European stock. We are sickly, pale, and given to dying in childbirth.
But I consider my surroundings as if it were 1847 and I had arrived here by hiking on sturdy legs and enduring hardship, not by Honda Insight. There are berries in these woods probably, and the soil would be fertile for growing vegetables. There are deer for venison (I’m certainly not hunting and killing it – I’ll leave that to the menfolk) and other rodent-based meat – squirrel and rabbit, which I’m also not killing, but would eat if there was no Chick-fil-A nearby.
This is my first vacation since receiving a Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia diagnosis. It’s good medicine to sit in the woods and contemplate your fate, it turns out. I walk barefoot on the dewey grass. I hug the big oak tree that shades the cabin and thank it for its shade. I listen to Teddy Swims and old Van Morrison on the cabin porch, rocking and blissed out.
I literally stood outside in the pouring rain with my face skyward with the intention of screaming into the void, but ended up thanking him for showing up and washing away my attitude with his tears.
The air is God-breathed, my ears are filled with birdsong. And even though is it’s pouring rain; I am glad for it. I watch the clouds tuck the mountains in goodnight. I love a good tucking-in.
I think this property was a Christmas tree farm at some point. Frasier Firs line the property. I guess we were all something else at one time or another. Each phase subject to its own rejoicing; each phase subject to hardness and heaviness. I reckon the land groaned as it weathered changes, just as I do now.
Every journey we find ourselves on – whether involuntary or self-led – is too much at some point. Things are a little too much now. So I groan. Oh how I groan. Oy vey!
We are home from our long weekend getaway now. I’m trying to carry some of the contentment that came so easy in the mountains into today. Nature made an investment in me during he course of our mini-vacay, and I’m trying not to squander the peace it gifted me.
Turn off the news and quiet the weeping and gnashing of teeth long enough to remember that God is close to the broken-hearted.
I am sick, but I am surrounded by love – even in the suburbs where the air does not carry the scent of God’s breath. Even when I’m spiking a fever at the least opportune times, or angsty about the state of the world.
Pain is a constant companion, but I’ve found it is more effective to run a three-legged race with it than to deny it altogether.
It is a part of me, and hating it ultimately ends in hating myself. So, I walk with it daily, with it. Running with it ends up tripping me up. Go one day at a time – the same way I got through getting sober.
Now that I think of it, perhaps pain is like my conjoined twin; one that dislikes all the things I love. We have to compromise, or nothing gets done. At any rate, it’s here to stay, and that can be the hardest, heaviest thing of all. This might sound defeatist, but it’s just acceptance. And as long as there is still nature and hugs and the Spirit of God, I can accept it with some measure of grace. Even as this land groans.
I hope your hard and heavy era passes soon, and you can find some peace in this crazy world.
Being diagnosed with leukemia on top of managing a half dozen chronic medical conditions has made some folks state with a vague indignation:
“That’s not fair.”
And in response, I can only say “no shit.”
Bless them for recognizing it’s too much. Because it IS too much. But the truth – whether you are a believer in Jesus or not – is “too much” is a normal unit of measurement for the bullshittery we must endure in this life.
“It’s not fair” always takes me by surprise. It’s like, Huh. Whats that like…thinking fairness was a viable option in the first place?
I think of things should be fair, of course, and I will try to advocate against the mistreatment of others. But sometimes “others” are not the problem…standard issuehumanity is. Our bodies get busted, our minds get screwy, our spirits falter.
Where one person fights health woes, another might struggle to put food on the table. When one is brokenhearted, another worries about her children constantly. Job troubles, anxiety problems, the list is endless.
If you’re really lucky, you won’t have to contend with all the above simultaneously, but perhaps you have. Or are. I have been all at once before, and I guess it lent me an anxiety-laced sense of a transcendent acceptance (whatever that is. I’ll have to ask my therapist.) Anxious some times, yes – but accepting.
I’m not angry with God, not anymore. , I’ve survived a bunch of really agonizing things, and somehow managed not to pick up a drink in 23 years. And that’s astounding. I never expected sobriety to “stick” for me, and I’m befuddled that it has to this day.
I pretended I had strength, until I did. God and I came to spiritual fisticuffs, and he won when I surrendered. White light meets white flag. Something shifted.
It was confirmed to me during the hard years what I’d known all along – life is not fair, but it’s really good. Even with cancer and alcoholism. There so many beautiful things in this world to appreciate, and beautiful people.
Yes, it’s “too much” sometimes – walking around in achy flesh, on a gravity-bound planet that doesn’t seem to get your vibe. But keep vibing, and so will I.
Occasional freak-outs will 100% happen again; I’m starting to think they have just as much right to be part of our vibe as does our holiest, Jesus-trustin’ selves. You know, for the sake of fairness.
Tomorrow I will find out what stage my Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia, as well as my prognosis. Sunday, I had a little nervous breakdown – nothing that would send me to a grippy-sock vacation, but enough that I purged three weeks’ worth of tears in one flail swoop. I really let it out, which ended up being a good thing, even though I tried to resist The Big Cry up until then. I was afraid if I started, I wouldn’t be able to stop. And I was right – I didn’t stop for hours. But eventually I did, if only because I exhausted myself.
Monday, I felt a little better.
Tuesday, my nerves started gearing up again.
And today – Wednesday – I have been up since 2 a.m. doing “research.”
Now “research” by a person such as myself, means obsessing over whatever the Internet says my results are. The internet gives only two types of medical information – the shit that paints a gloomy picture, and the shit that is so clinically detailed, nobody outside of medical school would understand it.
I have berated myself on a number of occasions because I like to think I’m intelligent(ish,) but I cannot follow the concepts that keep the human body going. There are too many numbers, symbols, letters, reactions, tests, and charts. I was lost at line 1 of every article I read.
I am not medical-school smart, obviously. I am an empath who can micro-read the slight variations in a tone of voice, miniscule body language movement, even a “vibe.”
A genius at vibing, which frankly has never paid the bills or helped me read a medical report. I can string words together pretty well – words are my art medium. I can understand some abstract concepts, but I am lost right now. And my brain has only one useful thing to say in all of this drama, which is – unhelpfully – worry. How many times do I have to surrender? Meditate. Go inward, Self. And for cripe’s sake, you failed 10th grade Algebra, so maybe stop trying to make sense of flow symmetry and lab results.
My head is a jumble already, what with a crash-course introduction to CLL Genetic markers? I’ve learned what some of them mean. Flow Symmetry tests? Pure sci-fi. Bone marrow biopsies? Not as bad as a spinal tap, but certainly no fun. PET scans? Makes you radioactive and entails a lot of waiting around.
But I have also learned that mine is a typically slow-growing cancer and is rarely diagnosed in someone under 60. Many people live years (being closely medically monitored) and there are treatments that typically help extend the life. I keep telling myself it’s “no big deal.”
That I already contend with chronic pain and illness on the daily, I’m frustrated with this additional issue. So, daily I find myself fluctuating between telling myself to stop being such a baby, and equal parts Oh my GOD. (And yes, I recognize that there are much worse cancers, much worse conditions out there … this is just my brain trying to hammer my feelings out of my noggin and onto a page, where it is much easier to reason with!)
The not-knowing is awful. I will be happy to close out my “research” study, after the appointment tomorrow. Knowlege is power (for real for real) and I guess that’s why I feel like a puny weakling right now, especially mentally. But ONWARD AND UPWARD. I am actively seeking “glimmers.”
“Glimmers” are simply the opposites of “triggers.”
I can focus on being triggered, and there will be plenty of reasons to be. The triggers that, well…trigger me. LIke: I am legitimately phobic of hospitals. The very word “cancer” trips me up. Thinking of how all of this will ultimately affect my family – HUGE trigger. How much is this going to run us, financially? Feeling like I was already sick, so what the actual HELL? There’s a little justifiable anger there, if I’m being honest. The pokes and prodding. The waiting rooms. The smell of antiseptic. Germs. Upended plans. Good old fashioned sadness.
Next, I think I’ll write about glimmers, and end today’s writing sesh with some positivity.
Got through the PET scan yesterday. Thank you all for sweet thoughts and prayers. It went “fine,” whatever that is. Except for once I was strapped on the table, I started crying. Fat, rolling tears came, en masse. And I had nothing to disassociate with. I wanted to grab my phone, or a TV remote, or a book, or ANYTHING. But my arms were strapped down to my side, so there was nowhere for any of it to go, no way to stuff it. So, as I traveled inch-by-inch through a giant mechanical donut (not nearly as bad as an MRI – look at the positive! – tears just rolled down my face for 45 minutes.
I would have given my kingdom for a single meme. Alas, it was just me and God in that machine, and it became clear to me that I am really sick.
What a time to snap out of denial, eh? Until now, I’ve thought of all the tests as just a “maybe I have cancer. Or maybe they’re wrong!” Even though an oncologist told me I did. Even though the biopsy confirmed it. They just have to do all these tests to rule it out, I kept telling myself.
Except they do not do bone marrow biopsies and PET scans for the hell of it. So, in the PET scanner, radioisotope coursing through my body, I accepted it. I cried the whole damn time and just FELT it. I was literally a human burrito, wrapped tight and constrained. I was reminded that this is why I made such a great candidate for alcoholism. Numb the BADFEELS.
After my childhood trauma and the series of unfortunate events in my life that followed, I just didn’t want to feel for the longest time. That was 23 years ago though and I know better now.
My sobriety is secure, and I’m grateful for that. It is only secure for today, because that’s how this thing works no matter how much sober time you have. But I’ve found my rusty recovery “toolbox” recently and it turns out that the tools are still in pristine order; it’s just the container that’s a little corroded and aged (hey! Just like my body!) I am daily remembering to keep my tools in working order – reaching out to friends. Spending time in meditation and prayer. Strengthening my soul. Keeping my mind busy. Practicing extreme gratitude.
But damn, y’all. I was already sick. There were already days that it was too much, just too much. So maybe the next step is anger, I don’t know. I suspect there is overlap in the stages of grief.
Anyway, one more test down; next up is meeting with my oncologist about staging the cancer , giving a prognosis, and planning treatment. Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia is forever – the only cancer that never truly leaves your body. But the best-case scenario would be that he takes a “wait and watch” approach. I will have to get labs every three months for the rest of my life; to monitor it, and take action when the sea of letters and numbers and markers and God-only-knows-what-else indicates treatment. But I am symptomatic, so it will not surprise me if I need chemo. That’s the crappy thing right now – that I have no idea.
So I’ll break out another tool, which is trust. Trust that the Universe has my best interest in mind, and that may not look like physical healing. I learned a long time ago that everything is indeed not healed in the name of Jesus – in this Realm. I would rather have a healed Spirit than a healed body, and for many years, “name it and claim it” damaged me far more than being sick. Casting “demons” out of sick people is incredibly damaging. As is “you are already healed in Jesus NAME!” Really? Because I am still physically hurting. Stop it. Just stop telling people that it’s their lack of faith that is keeping them from getting healed; all it does is create spiritual orphans out of people who are already suffering. I’ll get my healing. Eventually, but maybe not here. And that’s not lack of faith. Child, if I lacked FAITH, I wouldn’t have bothered to stick around this janky planet, in this janky body.
I’m real sorry my chronic, debilitating illness makes your faith messy. People get well. They also stay sick. And sometimes they leave us. And I’m pretty sure Jesus understands that. Don’t insult my faith. I have been through more and trials infirmary in my life than you can shake a crucifix at. God and I are well, thank you.
I digress though. What was I talking about? Oh yeah, letting the emotions flow. Because they aren’t going away on their own either; feelings are meant to be felt! Even the yucky ones.
Well, Dear Reader, things are trucking right along. A few days ago, I went to the hospital for my bone marrow biopsy – which was not quite as bad as it sounds.Almost, but not quite. Definitely no fun whatsoever, but as it turns out, I’m tougher than I’ve given myself credit for all these years. I straight-up felt like a badass, if that badass was scared shitless and masking the hell out of it, so as not to upset those around me worried about me.
And I don’t know how NOT to do that – mask for the sake of everyone around me. I can’t upset my husband. He is literally the best thing that has ever happened to me – my heart. I have to be brave for my daughters. They are processing in their own ways. And my readers – most of whom followed me from The Beggars Bakery – have watched me amass almost 24 years alcohol-free and they watch my recovery.
In recovery circles, you become very aware that people are watching you, seeing how you handle adversity and whatnot. I took on that mantle like a good People Pleaser, each year giving my testimony – every year, louder cheering when I would pick up my annual chip, but I hated the public speaking and fought nerves every meeting I ever shared at.
Frankly, I am cheering myself right now for staying sober, because F*CK! This is really hard.
But I’m kind of watching myself, being critical in a way I never was with anyone else’s tender heart, and why do I do that? Do better. Be more positive. God has a plan. Yadda yadda. Ugh. Beating myself over the head with toxic positivity because I know how to be toxically positive and laugh at every situation, but I don’t know how to do THIS.
Am I tough, or am I masking? Am I brave, or am I am I pretending? After all the scans and biopsies and scary medical stuff, I feel tougher. But I also feel rawer, tender in parts of my spirit – the pure and the shadowy – I didn’t know existed.
I was alright until I shuffled into the CAT scan room, so that they could guide the needle through my hip bone, into my marrow, suck out some of it, and punch a little piece of bone for biopsy as well. Because of a series of unfortunate events, I was by myself. Also I didn’t think anyone would be allowed back with me, but the waiting room had another waiting room someone could have been there in with me. But no. Just me and my thoughts, avalanching into numbness.
The team of three taking care of me were amazing – I could not have asked for gentler, more calming medical professionals – tried to put me at ease. But when I looked around, I saw the implements of the procedure, and had an internal freak-out. All I could think of was the Showtime series “Dexter,” which my husband and I LOVE and are currently bingeing. Drills! Sharp things! Syringes! Lord, Dexter would LOVE this set-up! I laugh to myself, then realize I’m just deflecting with humor again, a skill I hones early. Not that Dexter is funny – it’s just the lengths my brain will go to avoid feeling fear is ridiculous. I fought the fear to jump off the table and run…as if the joints in my legs would let me run further than the door.
“Okay, we are inserting the needle,” said the radiologist (forgive me if I mess up on the official job titles. I have seen a dizzying array of medical professionals in the past three weeks and it’s hard to keep them straight.) They had numbed me with lidocaine and put a little somethin-somethin’ in my IV for the pain. I could still feel it to some degree; I am very difficult to anesthetize. I feel EVERYTHING, mind, body, and soul.
The kindly PA explained that they were entered the bone. What a strange, awful sensation. Needles don’t belong there. But by the same token, I am so grateful that science allows them to help me in every way they can, and I say a quick praise for them. Then they said they were taking the marrow now “….almost there, almost there, almosttttt….” and I yelped because I could feel pain and pulling. Next was the bone punch. Mother of GOD.
Go to your happy place, I said to myself….that little house in Wimberley, Texas, with a stream out back as clear as bathwater, and full of little fishes. The grass is damp and glossy because it’s morning. There are bluebonnets, of course. And I see a sly little water moccasin swimming upstream a bit. I am not scared at all, just give him a nod as he slithers on his merry way – he belongs here too.We ALL belong, in my happy place. Van Morrison is playing in the little house up the hill. I am eating s bowl of Blue Bell Banana Puddin’ ice cream, while I dangle my bare toes in the clear water. Ahhh, so cool. It smells like Texas here. It smells like home. It is beautiful weather, not at all hot. And the creek is making tinkle noises, and I look up to see my husband, smiling, and…
“You’re a rock star!” the Tech said, bringing me back.
“You did SO good!” “You’re so BRAVE.” “Treat yourself to something special today!”
These are all things I said to my kids when I was potty-training them, and with the same inflection. And I was not mad about it, nor did I feel patronized. Dammit, I received every kudo. Talk sweet to me. Tell me I did a good job. (A sticker on my forehead, please?) Every comforting word was exactly what I needed to hear as a scared little girl whose screams went unanswered.
In case you are wondering, I did treat myself to something following my marrow biopsy. Something decadent and extravagant. Something I have been denying myself forever, because GOSH DAMN, it’s so expensive. It costed me much, but rewarded me more.
I had myself a big old cry. I let myself be sad about all this. I didn’t tell myself to get it together. Me alone with my thoughts – we all cried. And then we felt a little better. Until we felt sad again. And then hopeful. And then just raw. But it’s okay, not everything needs to be anesthetized. Maybe I can even cheer for a myself, for a change. Atta girl! This is still my “testimony,” and we shall see how I handle adversity and whatnot. I suspect it will be a mixed bag.
This is hard. Writing helps. Thank you for sharing this journey with me.
Okay this is the proof I got out of my actual pajamas yesterday, if only for an hour.
By: JANA GREENE
Hi. In the interest of journalistic integrity (haha), I feel like adding a disclaimer of some kind to the entries I’m going to be adding in Words by Jana Greene. Because I’m a writer, I like stories to have a clear beginning, middle, and end. I like when I can weave the narrative in clever ways or end up with a cohesive piece.
Yeah, this is NOT that.
When writing about this journey in particular, I am writing stream-of-consciousness-style, and if you don’t want to read me because this page may be full of incorrectly punctuated, rambling, seemingly random words, I get it Sis. I am not over-editing, because that breaks the intention of sharing my heart and makes it sort-of clinical in a way. I’m going to get plenty of “clinical;” this is the opposite, I think.
Yesterday, I had a rollicking good afternoon. Weirdly good. I put on a dress, asked my husband if we could go to dinner. I’m so tired of having cancer-ese language in my head.
I did my makeup, which happens with the relative frequency of a solar eclipse, and my hair – which is very long and very thick, and EXAUSTING to my hypermobile shoulders. And THEN – after alllll that – I look him dead in the eye. “Baby, I’ve used every ounce of my energy getting ready. I’m exhausted.”
“It’s okay,” says he. “Want to order in wings and binge-watch Dexter?” GOD, I LOVE THAT MAN.
So, lickity-split, I changed back into my “Agape Against the Machine” oversized t-shirt, ordered food, washed off every bit of makeup, plopped on the couch with my beloved, and ate chicken wings King-Henry-the-Eighth style in a MOST unladylike fashion with what little energy I had left.
The energy of a sick person is finite. And some days, it is more finite than others. “But you just DID it,” they say. “Yes!” say I. “And that’s why I can’t do it again!”
Doling it out over the course of the day must be deliberate. We don’t just “do things,” we do things that deplete our body’s energy ration in parcels. The parcels are not of our choosing, even. We wake up, take stock of pain, and – if our pain to exhaustion ratio is high, goals for the day get voted off the island until you are left with one crappy thing to do that isn’t even fun. Disabled bodies are utilitarian, and have no time for frivolity, on low-energy, high-pain days.
The ante was significantly upped with the cancer diagnosis June 13.
Tomorrow morning, I go for an invasive bone marrow test, which by all accounts SUCKS. I feel like up until now, I’ve been pretty accepting of my diagnosis and kind of positive about all this, but I ain’t feeling brave this morning. Fight, Flight, and Fawn all have seats at my breakfast table right now, and they look a hot mess.
So, today, I interrupt my own sometimes-toxic positivity with a special news bulletin:
I’m scared.
For the first time since the diagnosis, I am legitimately scared. I don’t know what triggered the fear (having cancer, probably – ha) but as tomorrow’s test looms, I’ve decided NO THANK YOU PLEASE, I don’t want to do this cancer thing. But thanks for the offer, I already have a full schedule full of trying to stay alive. I already gave at the office. Dance card is full.I have prior engagements. But thanks for stopping by!
But that’s not reality, so I just need to be able to say, “I’m f*cking terrified.”
When a disabled person gets cancer, there are “people of the Lord” who assume God’s got it OUT for me. Why else would he “allow” all of this? Or this secular quip: “You’re the unluckiest person I know.”
But I don’t feel unlucky. I am surrounded by light and support and love. I just feel scared today, with a chance of intermittent sadness. Not strong. Not perky and upbeat. Just run-of-the-mill scared. I feel both: Scared AND lucky to have such an amazing tribe helping me make it through.
So I’ll shut this laptop, and light some candles, and get into a quiet spot, and breathe deliberately. I might take out my tongue drum and play some tones, focusing on each one as it completes its own life cycle of vibration, letting the sound take my fear down a buttonhole. Light some sage, let it’s perfume reassure me. Pray honest. Do some breathwork. Maybe I’ll get into the paints and make a mess today. Talk to God, and listen for his answer back, which can come in a myriad of ways – you just have to have the awareness to hear it. (Just ask for greater awareness of the Divine. God wants us to have the peace that passes understanding. He is not stingy with it! Don’t believe me? God lit in the forest by yourself for a while and receive. I highly recommend.
These are some of my tools to treat the fear when it comes. I acknowledge it, thank it for trying to protect me, but busy myself in art and music until it can stop actin’ a fool. And perhaps in the coming weeks, I will have another energy burst and put on the little black dress again, and actually make it out the front door! Maybe get all the way to a nice restaurant, where I’ll be able to stay awake, digest food like a normal person, and have a whole-ass date, start to finish. My husband deserves that – and so much more.
The Hubs and I went for a little adventure in Southport the other day. We made a whole day of exploring after a lovely ferry ride across the choppy Cape Fear River. Well, we made half a day out of it anyway.
By: JANA GREENE
Nobody talks about what it’s like the first week after a cancer diagnosis. You’ve been leveled, and you know you have a “long road ahead, “but that road is a raging river so far as you can tell. The same day I received my CLL diagnosis, I was also diagnosed with a basal skin cancer on my leg. What are the odds? Two cancers in one day? I never half-ass anything!
Instinctually, you want to lay in bed and lament your fate, with weeping and probably gnashing of teeth, but you have things you want to do. And none of us have the time we think we do, so I’m trying to do the things. Like get out of bed. Like brush my hair. Like meditate until my mind quiets. Sorrow rolls like sea billows, a Nor’easterI didn’t know was coming. But I also have times of peace like a river, attending my way. There is no manual for this. I don’t really know how to feel most of the time.
I was having a good day and we were down for an adventure, so the Hubs and I spent some time in Southport. We even took the ferry across the Cape Fear River. Ferry rides are always fun.
One of the places we visited is the Maritime Museum. It has all the usual small-town museum kitch – displays about pirate life, a few real buttons from the Queen Anne’s Revenge (Blackbeard’s sunken ship.) Displays about hurricanes that have come ashore here. An “interactive” fishing exhibit. That kind of thing.
But what stopped me in my tracks was a display featuring little porcelain figurines of sailors trying to row themselves out of Hurricane- whipped seas. Every crest of the ocean higher than the last, roiling waters with no safe harbor in sight. And this little sculpture spoke to me. It reminded me right away of my favorite old hymn – “It is Well With my Soul,” by Horatio Spafford.
You see, Spafford wrote the hymn after several traumatic events leveled him. He had been a successful attorney and real estate investor who lost a fortune in the great Chicago fire of 1871. Around the same time, his beloved four-year-old son died of scarlet fever.1n 1873, hit by the economic downturn, he planned to travel to England with his family. He sent his wife Anna and four daughters ahead on the SS Ville du Havre, a French ocean liner, while he finished up business. He planned to follow in a few days’ time. While crossing the Atlantic Ocean, the ship was involved in a terrible collision and sunk. More than 200 people lost their lives, including all four of Horatio Spafford’s precious daughters. His wife, Anna, survived the tragedy. Upon arriving in England, she sent a telegram to her husband that began: “Saved alone. What shall I do?”
My grandfather had loved the sea, though he was never a sailor. And he had his own struggles, as we all do. He met up every day with depression, but he also had this bright light – like the bulb in a lighthouse. He showed me the way many times. I remember watching him paint a great Cutty Sark ship. His oil paintings of oceans were always depicted with rough waters, and he spared none of the turquoise, deep blues, and crests of white foam to get the point across – chaos is the nature of this world. Rough seas ahead!
Some might think his paintings were of angry seas. But to me as a child, surrounded by the smell of turpentine and admiration for my Papa, it looked happy enough to me – like riding riding the tilt-a-whirl at the state fair. A busy, alive sea…. WHEEEE!
My creative Papa was also a choir director, and when I’d tag along to his practices, he would often choose the old hymn. It is actually a horrible story to tell a little kid. I’m not sure I would have told that story to a four-year old, but it was a different time. I definitely never forgot the song and its meaning.
It means, “Shit happens, kid. Things will occur in your life that an earlier version of you would have sworn would kill you. Hoist the sails. If you don’t have sails, trust the wind. If you can’t trust the wind, trust God. Because tragedy is inevitable, and saved alone, what shall we do?”
Ah, but we are not rowing alone, and we are not saved alone. We are saved by a God who knows we will get roughed up a little and saved by each other – crewmates. Keep rowing over the roiling seas, and I will too. I’m grateful a little plastic sea featuring sailors in danger reminded me to trust God in a small-town museum in the middle of a crisis.
Horatio Spafford had to go through hell in order to create something that has brought untold millions hope and strength.
I have complained to the manager (God) about this protocol, that in order to bring hope, you have to walk through despair. Doesn’t seem like a good business plan but what do I know? He is the Captain, and I am not. Whatever my lot, he has taught me to say, it is well. It is well with my soul. (Today anyway, which is the only day all of us know we have.)
“And Lord, haste the day with the faith shall be sight; it is well, it is well with my soul.” I pray it is well with yours, no matter the seas.
I see a nasty headache has decided to show up, which means (a) this will be a very short meeting, and (b) I’m in a crappy mood. So, LISTEN UP!
Migraines, did you NOT get the memo that debilitating headaches aren’t the THING at this time- that getting confirmation that Leukemia is joining our team overrides your meddling right now? That’s a write-up, mister.
*Nods to Leukemia, who is perplexed and unwelcome, and would like a word with the head-hunter than assigned it to someone whose health is already chaotic – the Grand Central Station of Medical Dysfunction, if you will – when it’s painfully (haha) clear that some of this should have been outsourced.
And Ehlers Danlos, you pipe down too, with your pain first thing in the morning. Did I participate in the circus as a contortionist in the middle of the night, and that’s why my joints are on fire? (Speaking of joints on fire, I can see we will be starting this day with a little of the Lord’s Lettuce.) Did I dream I was a middle-aged, chubby Rockette and pull my hip out in a pair sequined pantyhose whilst sleeping? Did a little cereal elf come replace my kneecap with cornflakes when I was sleeping, so that I woke up with a knee that functions like its made of cornflakes, sounds like it’s made of cornflakes, and has the stability of cornflakes a ‘plenty but not a damn kneecap?
POTs, I really don’t want to fall today. And yes, I know you hate the heat and it’s June in the South. And frankly, you don’t give me the physical energy to move me somewhere cooler, so you see my conundrum. Also, I’d really appreciate NOT getting dehydrated now, as it makes everything 100x worse. Lord God, why am I always dehydrated, make it stop.
Sweet, hard-working Immune System, remember: Germs are not our friends. Stop fraternizing with the enemy. I know aren’t armed with much equipment, but try to fight, ok? I know Leukemia moved in. Stand your post. I believe in you.
Migraine, EDS, POTs…Ya’ll act like you’re toddlers at a petting zoo – cutting line in front of each other to get to get to something that’s loud, demanding, only mildly interesting, and shitty. Calm down. There’s plenty to go around.
Whoever is taking the meeting minutes, please note that the next person who sweetly tells me that the Lord never gives us more than we can handle is getting a throat-punch, and I am a very non-violent person. Ditto “God’s ways are not our ways,” and “Just pray harder.” Maybe two throat punches for praying harder.
I ain’t mad at God about this anyway. When he pours our souls into these Earth Suits, he never said they weren’t prone to disease and disaster. The warranty on the vessel leaves much to be desired, but we instead can rest knowing our Spirits are locked up tighter than a bull’s butthole in fly season. (Sorry for the joke, but laughter is going to be ESSENTIAL in getting through this!)
Seriously, guys. Ya’ll are going to have to take turns. Your presentation is sloppy and there is entirely too much overlap.
Thanks for attending this (mandatory) meeting. I know you’re all working so effing hard, just to keep going. To which I say, thank you. A harder working bunch there never was.
Hello, friends. I have decided to share my current situation, in the hopes it will help me to process what’s going on, and maybe give someone else hope who is struggling similarly.
I kind of hate that about myself – I want to be mysterious and private, I am just really bad at handling things alone, and there’s nothing worse than feeling like you’re in a sinkhole by yourself, (and nobody will even admit there IS a sinkhole, much less throw you a rope.)
So, I’m sharing this in the hope that you guys will lob some prayers and hope and good vibes my way. I could use it. I also hope by sharing this, maybe someone else facing a difficult diagnosis will feel less alone. I have decided to blog about my journey. Feel free to follow here at wordsbyjanagreene.com if you want to keep up.
Thursday, I saw an oncology hematologist at the Zimmer Center, because I’ve had whacky labs and a ridiculous WBC count for a while now. I have been feeling extra run-down. I already have a host of other major medical issues. Why was I being sent to an oncology specialist? Huh. I figured it was just a mix up. It was not. I was told to expect bad news, which was actually helpful to my mental health, even though was the longest weekend of my life.
Today I got the call that confirmed that I have Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia. “CLL” is sometimes described as “the kind of leukemia you want, if you MUST have leukemia.” It is the only cancer that never goes away – there is no getting rid of it, it’s in my marrow. Many people live 10-20 years with it, sometimes without needing continual treatment. It is also extremely slow-growing and highly treatable. And I’m hanging my hat on that. But it’s still cancer. The next step is a bone marrow biopsy, and a PET scan to make sure it hasn’t spread. The doctor suspects it has not, and I hope he’s right.
On the one hand, I have answers. Mystery pop-up fevers all the time? Oh. Excessive bruising? Well, that makes sense. Mind-melting fatigue? Whelp. On the other hand, I have a long road ahead and I’m organically TIRED. Not just physically, but in every way.
I am pretty sure I have done all five grief stages in the past few days. Denial – poring over my labs determined to find some easy, benign explanation for all of it. And hitting a wall with obvious markers all weekend. Anger – WHAT THE ACTUAL F&%$? Bargaining – well, maybe not so much. At the end of the day, God is in control, and I am not, and I trust that he knows better than me. I feel his presence so intensely that I know the Spirit is buoying me up. I seem to be teetering between Depression (it’s a bummer any way you slice it,) and Acceptance currently. And the notes of acceptance are starting to be the dominant flavor.
I plan on letting my feelings have their say in all of this, even though it feels like my brain is being operated by untrained carnie workers right now.
The very hardest thing about this has been breaking the news to my three precious daughters yesterday. Literally the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I am so fortunate – they are all such incredible people and so supportive. And my husband is my ROCK. And I have such beautiful friends surrounding me.
Some people might think I’m the unluckiest woman in the world, what with so many health issues. But I see it differently – how lucky am I to be surrounded with so much love? So lucky. This is not going to steal my faith. Or my sense of humor. Or hope. It can’t. I won’t let it.
Okay, it’s giving 4th grade (but I’m a child of God, sooo…)
By: Jana Greene
I used to doodle a lot in church. Some would call it “prophetic art.” I’m of the mind that all art is prophetic, in that it releases energy. It releases dreams.
This week has been a most difficult week…maybe one of the most difficult ever. Bad news stacked on bad news. But still, deep inside, it is well with my soul. Not my body – and certainly not in my mind!
But my soul? A peace that I have NO business having – on paper. I can only thank God for making sure my spiritual sails were hoisted and my rudder steady. He saw it coming. And he made a way.
When peace like a river, attendeth my way.
But also when sorrows like sea billows roll.
This morning, I doodled again. I got the message loud and clear:
KEEP GOING, KIDDO.
Let the chips fall, but keep going. Accept bad news, but keep going. Cry, scream, and give God a WHAT-FOR. But keep going. You can walk forward while shaking your fist at the sky, I promise!
Maybe your inner kiddo needs reminding too. I’ll keep going if you will.
And thanks, Lord. Because whatever my lot, you have taught me to say, “It is well, it is well, with my soul.”
I’ve written most of my life about wandering in the desert, because frankly – I knew the desert like the back of my hand. Desert journeys include a lot of traipsing over the same sands you’ve already navigated, because the terrain is indistinguishable, and a lot of anxiety is generated by wondering when the bare, solitary wasteland finally opens up into the green meadow.
“Wandering the desert” is a catch-all term for feeling lost and bereft, without benefit of a plan, and without benefit of a Guide. On your own, finding your way without a map. Knowing somebody somewhere knows how to get out but is watching you bungle it. It’s the Christianese way to validate the spiritual experience of feeling lost and alone.
Every day, more wandering than wonderful. Wander and bump into something in my way. Wander and collapse from exhaustion. Wander and bump into myself (which can be a real awkward encounter, if you’re not ready for it.
Everyone acts like the desert is a life stage you have to go through to get to the other side. But many of us been wandering in a desert, keeping our eye on the sands, only to watch it disappear like a mirage the closer we get. Suffering here is buoyed by the hope that in the sweet by-and-by, we will be magically lifted when God returns to scoop up all of his chosen people, heretics and hooligans literally be damned. Except for I want my magic now, and I rather like the heretics and hooligans (and suspect Jesus does too, given his propensity for hanging out with scoundrels.)
What they won’t tell you is that it’s an inside job – that the Guide came preinstalled in you, and you cannot uninstall it. Trust me, I’ve tried, in times I was sure I knew a better way.
The “magic” of a God who cannot be anything BUT mystical and That’s where the magic happens. Paradise in the midst of a desert. You don’t have to go far to hear the Spirit of Source – go within. Not all who wander are lost, after all.
No bare, solitary, spiritual wasteland for you. Source loves you too much to keep you in that parched wasteland.
You’re the one who got me in this pickle. You started it.
You said to love your neighbor. But it turns out there seems to be disclaimers to this most important of all commandments, and it’s very confusing to keep the rules straight.
Then you told me to witness to the world, make disciples of men, when what they really need is a template for what love looks like; not just what it sounds like.
So, I did that too.
You told me to pray God would break my heart for what breaks his heart, and that is the prayer that did me in. I hope you’re happy.
This was the knottiest kink in the whole chain. Because listen...
HE DID IT. I had a supernatural experience. The veil didn’t tear open but it did have a loose thread. And I did what people do, which is to pick at it until it unraveled.
And it was VERY upending and not entirely pleasant.
People were hungry. People were lonely. People had had scripture lobbed at them at every turn but were empty. I did a lot of that lobbing in the day. They were all hurting, because we are all hurting. Presence does what words can never do.
The whole, wide hurting world is looking at Christ-followers to see if they are made of the same stuff they preach. And woefully, too much of it perpetuates the separation between us and God (in reality, there is none.)
And you never told me to love myself, as one who could also benefit from that top-tier commandment. And I didn’t know how, as you taught me the human heart is deceitful above all things and not to trust it. Not to trust the voice of the God particle we all carry, that divine spark.
Church, God is within you, you told me. But he’s not the icky parts. No, he cannot be in the presence if ick. It’s too icky and you’re too human. As if Christ didn’t pick his nose or wipe his butt. As if he didn’t wail and cry, and ask the cup to be taken from him.
It’s my desire to see the Church repent for making love about doctrine and law.
Please don’t discount revival because it looks nothing like you thought it would. God is crafty that way. He isn’t bound to do it your way (or mine.)
As it turns out, I don’t mind being in this pickle anymore. Because it’s fundamentally changed me to consider the suffering of others. It should change all of us.
I fell in love with you a long time ago, Church. There is so much to love. Good news! Community! You reared our whole generation, and I’m so grateful for all the wonderful experiences I’ve had in your space. It felt like a safe space for a long time.
But perhaps it’s time for a shift?
I will always love you, but sanctuaries should not be proving grounds.
And as we all experience this great winding-up to sharing the mind of God in total, let’s remember people over policies. Politics have no place in religion, and frankly, we cannot afford the hatred that comes part and parcel with politics. Please keep it out of the pulpit. You alienate more people than you help.
So, actually, thank you for starting this, I think.
How often do I feel like I’m spiritually “getting things right”? About as often as we see an eclipse. So let’s not lean on on our “understanding” of God and lean instead into Love (which is really just another name God goes by.) And yes, this is my lame attempt at photographing the eclipse.
By: JANA GREENE
If it’s God’s will, it will come easily. That’s how you know you’re operating in the Spirit. Things will click. Things will flow. His yoke is light, etc and so on.
But also, if you are in God’s will, it will be hard.
You’ll know you have holy favor when you’re downtrodden and at the end of your rope. That’s the ol’ devil, don’t you know. And he wouldn’t mess with you if you weren’t doing God’s work.
Well, which is it? Do you see the conundrum?
This is life, and it’s both and neither. It is, so far as I can tell, it’s ALLTHETHINGS, dammit.
I can’t trust a God whose mind I have to pick apart to get it “right.”
I don’t tell my adult children, “Okay, I’m feeling some type of way about you…but WHICH way? Let’s see if you can correctly guess based on interpretation of an ancient text and my jealous, vengeful nature. May the odds be ever in your favor!”
I learn alongside my children, you see. For everything I learn about them, they learn about me. And in the process, and I feel like we are all learning alongside God, with curiosity and wonder and grieving and suffering.
It will be easy, there will be times of flow.
It will be brutally difficult.
It’s all holy favor, you see, and that’s the confounding part.
God only feels ONE type of way about you.
We need not wring our hands in an attempt to earn love, because that’s the way we have been taught to please a world of broken people and an unpleasable diety.
In actuality, the odds are always, always in your favor, Beloved. Even (especially?) when you’re most hurt, downtrodden, and at the end of your rope.
Whether you invite God to a celebration of the soul or an old-fashioned pity party, just invite him. The Spirit shows up for both.
Words by Jana Greene 